The tariff war will shoot the price of a component that nobody speaks: the SSD units

The tariff war that has triggered the entire planet The US government led by Donald Trump is wreaking havoc in the markets. Consumers are already noticing Price increase Of many products, and presumably in the short term we will perceive it in many more. There is no doubt that the world is entering In an unexplored terrain.

If we stick to technology, much is being talked about the impact of tariffs on chips for applications of artificial intelligence (AI), CPU and other components, but storage solutions have gone unnoticed. Until now. And it is that US tariff policy will cause with high probability a very important increase in the price of mechanical hard discs and solid state storage units.

Mechanical hard drives can be worse stopped than SSD units

Seagate, Toshiba and Western Digital are the main manufacturers of mechanical hard drives. The supply chains of these three companies are very complex because the components they use to assemble their units come from a very wide range of countries. And, to anyone’s surprise, many of these nations are among those subject to The highest US tariffs. In principle the most disadvantaged company at the current situation is Seagate.

As we have told you, the US administration has increased tariffs for products from China up to 145%and Seagate produces a good part of his porpholio in the country led by Xi Jinping. In current circumstances the best option for these companies is Move your production to the USeither one of the countries that are receiving a slightly friendlier treatment from the Government of Donald Trump.

However, for mechanical hard drives manufacturers it is not easy to move from one country to another. And it is not because these devices are assembled in clean rooms similar to Those used to manufacture semiconductors with the purpose of ensuring that dust particles do not spoil them. The panorama faced by the producers of solid state storage units is not very different.

Samsung, Micron or Kioxia supply chains, among other companies that manufacture NAND 3D memory chips or SSD units, are as complex as those of companies that produce mechanical hard drives. However, manufacturers of solid state units They have an advantage With which the mechanical hard drives companies do not count: the assembly of the SSD does not have to be carried out in a clean room.

In practice it is relatively simple to transfer the production of SSD from China or Vietnam to Mexico, Canada or the US. Whatever the price of storage units, whether they are going to increase perceptibly over the next weeks. Only a return to the prior market to tariffs could avoid it, and right now this possibility is remote.

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